


Guarding Dandelions

by tptigger



Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Gen, the wizard's oath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:56:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4208721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptigger/pseuds/tptigger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the newer wizards in Nita's life still need to learn what the oath is all about. And that sometimes, doing nothing is upholding it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guarding Dandelions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Independence1776](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Independence1776/gifts).



> This story takes place in the school year between "High Wizardry" and "A Wizard Abroad" and uses the NME timeline. (Though the changes to the relevant books are so small as to not make a difference for this story.)  
> Many thanks to my beta (to be revealed with my identity) and to NightsMistress (she knows why).

Nita walked into the kitchen and resisted the urge to smack herself in the forehead. Dairine had a bagel on a plate in one hand and a glass of milk in the other and was heading for the table. They had to leave for school. 

"Come on, you're taking that to go." Nita took Dairine's bagel and wrapped it up in a napkin. "We're going to be late."

Their mother glanced at the clock. "Nita's right." She took the glass of milk out of Dairine's hand. "You don't want to be late your first day of school, do you?"

Dairine rolled her eyes and pulled out a chair. "We can just teleport there."

"Do you want the universe to run down early?" Nita shoved the chair back in, wishing Dairine would _think_ for once.

"No."

"Then don't waste energy." Nita pressed the wrapped bagel into Dairine's hand.

"You and Kit take jaunts up to the moon on a whim."

Nita fought back a cringe; they never went to the moon on a whim! "We know what we're doing." Nita dragged Dairine by the hand towards the door.

"Yes, Doctor, whatever you say, Doctor."

"And don't you forget it, Donna," Nita joked.

"Don't say things like that, Nita." Dairine followed her out the front door. "You'll start me bawling again."

"You started it. You've done some big things on your first time out, Dairine. 

"Kit and I faced the Lone Power in an alternate New York, you created an entire species and guided it through its choice. You know big magic, did big things. Don't forget that Kit and I met Fred and kicked off our entire Ordeal because I wanted my space pen back."

"Then why can't we teleport to school?" Dairine whined.

Kit jogged up to them. "For starters, it's an exposure risk."

"Nita still hasn't explained how going to the moon isn't."

"You can't get there on foot." Kit shifted his backpack as he fell into step with the girls. "We don't go every day, or even every week. Being a wizard isn't always about saving planets, you know."

"We're supposed to guard growth and ease pain," Dairine said.

"How does teleporting to school help that?" Kit asked.

"Saving planets does."

"Planets aren't the only things that hurt," Nita said.

They rounded the corner to see two boys standing in the median on Oak Street that the neighborhood had reclaimed by covering it in flowers. Unfortunately, they weren't there to smell the flowers. One boy was covered in spikes from his jet black hair to what looked like an oversized bulldog collar out of a Warner Brother's cartoon around his neck and all the way down to his spiked shoes. He was using the spikes to dig up a vermillion tulip while breaking the stem with his toe. The other boy's sleeves, covered in skulls, disappeared into the tall stems.

"Like plants?" Dairine asked.

"Exactly like plants." Kit dashed towards the median.

The others followed.

Halfway there, Nita realized why she'd recognized their clothes: she knew these boys from school. The boy wearing skulls was named Frank, but the other boy had such an unpronounceable first name that everyone just called him Spike. Except for the teachers, who called him Mr. Jones. They usually had a third cohort, Ryan Davis, who was nowhere to be seen. Before Nita could get close enough to figure out if the best approach was a direct confrontation or a little wizardly slight of hand, a boy in blue jeans and a blue polo shirt raced up to the two others.

"Guys, what are you doing?"

"Stay out of this, traitor," Spike snarled.

"No."

"They're trying to gentrify the neighborhood, man," Frank said. "We're trying to stop them."

"You're killing things. Stop it or I'll stop you."

"We're helping them transcend," Frank said.

The boy shook his head. "That's not what dying is. Last chance, or I'll stop you."

"Oh yeah?" Spike asked. "You and what army?"

"Us," Nita said, screeching to a stop next to the boy in jeans.

Dairine stood at his other side, backpack on the ground, feet apart and muscles taut.

Spike and Frank looked at Dairine, hardly sparing a glance at the others. They ran. As much as Nita hated to admit it, Dairine's reputation must have preceded her: she had a habit of kicking the butts of people who tried to pick on others, and everyone knew it.

Nita turned to the boy who had originally confronted the two goths. "Hi, I'm..."

She stopped as he took off running down the street.

Kit glanced at his watch. "Class starts in ten minutes, we'd better hustle."

* * * 

Lunch felt like Nita had stepped into an alternate universe. Joanne, for example, was now wearing a skirt and sitting with the popular girls instead of her usual group of thugs. As if the popular girl table had a quota, two of the girls who sat there were off on their own, wearing faded jeans and t-shirts, their heads bent over a tablet. 

Kit clattered his lunch tray across from Nita. "Remind me to pack my lunch tomorrow; you'd think they could make the food actually edible. Are you OK? You just jumped."

"Lost in thoughts. Since when did Joanne sit with the popular girls?"

Kit followed her gaze. "Second biggest transformation of the summer."

"Who was the first?" Nita asked.

"Ryan Davis."

Nita turned to Kit. "Seriously? What's he look like now?"

"He was the one confronting his old buddies this morning."

Nita stared at Kit, wondering if she should make him say it in the speech. "You're kidding. He's wearing blue jeans and a colored shirt. His hair is so short that you can even see his face! What happened to him?"

"Yeah, I don't get it either. You want to ask him? He just got out of the lunch line."

Nita glanced over, to find Ryan, his brow furrowed, looking around the lunch room. "He's looking for somewhere to sit."

"You're not thinking..."

"It's painful to eat lunch on your own," Nita pointed out.

Kit sighed, and waved. "Yo, Ryan."

Ryan's eyebrows shot up, but he came to the table and sat down. "Thanks, there weren't any empty tables and I didn't really feel like sitting with my old crew."

"After this morning, I don't blame you," Kit said.

"Thanks for the assist by the way. After they left, I was just..." He poked experimentally at a particularly white tater tot, then pushed it to the side of his lunch tray. "I had to get to class."

"No worries," Kit said.

"We were almost late ourselves." Nita broke open her banana, biting her lip. "I have to admit I didn't recognize you. Though going against your old friends with the make over would probably throw anybody."

Ryan shrugged. "They're so focused on death. Destruction. I... a lot happened over the summer and I just..." He poked at what the cafeteria claimed was spinach. Nita was convinced it was actually a wet mop that had been dyed green. "It's kind of a long story."

Nita raised an eyebrow at that.

Ryan shifted, stabbing at the alleged spinach. "What did you guys do over the summer?" He stuffed a bite of the mop into his mouth.

"Went to the beach on Cape Cod with Nita's family."

Ryan looked from one to the other. "I didn't know you guys were dating."

Kit rolled his eyes. 

Nita shook her head. "Why does everyone assume that?" 

Ryan smirked. "You'd think after all the assumptions people make about me I'd learn, wouldn't you?"

There was a story that Ryan was slipping around the edges of, but if he was desperate enough to use cafeteria spinach as an excuse not to talk, Nita didn't want to pry.

"We spent most of the days swimming," Kit said.

Nita figured changing the subject was a good idea, but while "we spent the days swimming" was technically true, it implied they'd spent happy hours splashing in the surf, not diving to the bottom of the ocean to perform the Song of Twelve that, had things gone according to plan, would have required Nita's death.

"Sounds cool," Ryan said. "I... spent the summer reading a lot."

"A couple weeks of that sounds like heaven," Nita said.

It beat nearly having to be eaten by a shark and then having to chase her sister across the far reaches of the universe.

"It was nice," Ryan said. "I learned a lot."

"Is that where the new perspective came from?" Kit asked.

"Something like that."

Nita had a bit of a notion tickling at the back of her head, but she couldn't quite get her brain around it.

The bell rang.

"Nice eating with you guys, thanks," Ryan said.

"Nice eating with you too." Kit picked up his tray.

"Join us anytime." Nita picked up her lunch pack and headed for her next class.

* * *

After the final bell, Nita visited her locker, then joined the river of students flowing out of the school. Out of boredom, or perhaps born out of the necessity moving after having to sit still day, Nita climbed the tree. Partly to spot Kit when he left the school, but also partly to get a better view. She saw Ryan's face as he stepped out of the door, then lost track of him in the flow of brown and blond heads and smiling faces streaming out of the building. One moment, the students formed a uniform flow out from the school, at least in the middle, with a few eddies on either side as students caught other friends and stopped to chat. The next, as if someone had dropped a boulder into the middle of a river, the flow changed as someone with their back to her stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

Nita glanced at the door, figuring she'd see someone waving to whoever was causing the disruption. There was no one there. She focused her attention on the dark hair, blue polo shirt and blue jeans of the person standing still and realized that Ryan was the one interrupting the flow. At first, Nita wondered if he'd left something in the school. Then it occurred to her. Ryan was balanced neatly on a crack in the sidewalk, feet hip-width apart, a dandelion poking out from the gap between paving stones of the sidewalk between his feet.

The unrealized notion that had been poking at the back of Nita's skull suddenly popped out, fully formed, like Athena. Nita pulled her manual out of her backpack and flipped to the directory. Sure enough, in the list of wizards in Nassau County, there was Davis, Ryan. He wasn't on active status, and his ranking showed that he had just passed his Ordeal over the summer.

The hordes of students slowed down to a trickle, then out came Kit, finally. He'd been talking to the sponsor of the school robotics team about a possible project.

Ryan still stood, guarding the dandelion.

Nita dropped out of the tree, quietly approached Ryan and then tapped him on the shoulder. "All that work to guard a flower, Cousin?"

Ryan jumped, and then stared.

"I believe the words you're looking for are 'Dai Staiho.'" Nita grinned.

"Dai Staiho. How did you know?"

Nita shrugged. "It takes one to know one, I guess. If you're going to protect that flower from being trampled, you're going to be standing here a long time."

"I figured I'd wait until things were less crowded, then try a shield spell."

"That's a lot of energy for one little dandelion. And what about the paving stones?"

Ryan blinked. "What about them?"

Kit walked up to them. "Am I missing something?"

"Ryan's a wizard too," Nita said. "I was about to explain about how the dandelion would affect the paving stones, but that's more your bag."

"Root systems are your thing," Kit pointed out. "The roots are the aggressors here."

"Guys, who cares about the paving stones?" Ryan asked. "'I will guard growth and ease pain, remember?"

"Got your manual on you?"

Ryan gave Nita a quizzical look, then pulled a book out of his bag.

"Look at the oath."

Ryan wrinkled his nose at Nita, but turned to the the page. He pointed at the line he had just quoted.

"Read the next part."

"I will fight to preserve what grows and lives in its own way/ nor will I change any creature unless its growth and life/ or that of the system of which it is part are threatened or threaten another." Ryan looked up, frowning at Nita. "The paving stones don't grow."

"They do talk to Kit."

"Really?"

"Really," Kit said. "What do you suppose will happen if that dandelion keeps growing and its roots spread sideways?"

"I don't know."

Nita hated it when Kit was right. "Roots can exact 150 pounds per square inch of pressure on concrete, which breaks it. Then the cracks start to erode."

"And before you know it, entropy means the school needs a new sidewalk." Ryan bit his lip, looking intently at the dandelion for a moment. "There's a lot to learn, still, isn't there?"

"There always is." Nita grinned. "Have you met Tom and Carl yet?"

"Oh yeah."

"Ever seen their manuals?"

Ryan paled. "Oh, boy. How will I ever learn it all?"

"You won't," Nita said. "You also won't be able to fix everything. The hardest part of wizardry is learning to choose your battles."

"I'm going to be terrible at this," Ryan said. "I'm so behind."

"Did you at any time plan to use wizardry to get to school this morning?" Nita asked.

"That's a waste of energy."

"Congratulations," Nita said. "You're ahead of my sister."

Ryan grinned. Then he blinked. "Wait, isn't your sister, like, eleven?"

"In October," Nita said.

Ryan stared. "I don't think I want to know."

"Sounds like our work here is done, Neets," Kit said.

"Except for that giant pile of homework."

"Do I want to know what it's going to be like when there's errantry and homework?" Ryan asked.

"Busy," Kit said. "Very busy."

"You'll get used to it," Nita said. "Errantry is rarer than you think, sometimes it's the everyday things."

"How do you know which everyday things to change and which not to?"

"Practice," Kit said.

"Patience," Nita said over Kit.

"Are you sure you're not dating?" Ryan asked.

"Positive," Nita and Kit chorused.

Ryan laughed.

"Want to walk home with us?" Kit asked.

"Yes please."

They started in the direction of home, leaving the dandelion to the system of which it was part.


End file.
